PRAYER  AND  MISSIONS 


BY 


ROBERT  E.  SPEER 


PRAYER  AND  MISSIONS 


BY 

Robert  E.  Speer 


STUDENT  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT; 
125  EAST  TWENTY-SEVENTH  STREET 
NEW  YORK 


PRAYER  AND  MISSIONS. 


Among  the  Jews  there  has  been  a 
saying,  “He  prays  not  at  all  in  whose 
prayers  there  is  no  mention  of  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God,’^  but  the  veil  which  remain- 
eth  untaken  away  in  the  reading  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  hung  like  a  pall  over 
the  living  experience  of  this  truth  as 
well.  And  Jewish  blindness  finds  its 
parallel  in  the  Church’s  neglect  of  the 
voice  which  for  centuries  has  been 
pleading,  largely  in  vain,  “Pray  ye  the 
Lord  of  the  harvest  to  thrust  forth  la¬ 
borers  into  His  harvest.”  Eighteen  long 
centuries  of  waiting,  during  which  His 
kingdom  has  not  come,  are  alike  the  evi¬ 
dence  and  the  result  of  the  absence  of 
expressed  desire  that  the  King  and  His 
kingdom  should  appear.  Perhaps  more 
so  now  than  for  years,  and  yet  very  lit¬ 
tle  even  to-day  does  the  longing  cry  rise 
up  “Thy  Kingdom  Come,”  not  only  as 
an  inner  advent  to  hearts  in  Christen¬ 
dom,  but  over  all  the  world.  If  the 
work  of  missions  were  purely  a  human 


4 


enterprise,  this  neglect  might  be  intel¬ 
ligible.  But  in  a  supernatural  cause, 
resting  on  a  supernatural  charter,  led 
on  by  an  omnipotent  Leader,  with  all 
His  supernatural  power  pledged  to  its 
support  on  the  conditions  of  consecra¬ 
tion  and  prayer  on  the  part  of  its  human 
agents,  a  neglect  of  prayer  is  a  denial  of 
the  Lord’s  leadership  and  a  willful  lim¬ 
itation  of  success.  For  in  all  the  mis¬ 
sionary  work  of  God,  to  take  no  wider 
ground,  if  there  be  any  wider  ground, 
all  success  and  guidance  are  consequent 
only  upon  prayer. 

It  was  so  in  the  history  of  the  early 
Church,  whose  development  for  years 
was  almost  wholly  a  story  of  missionary 
progress,  with  every  step  christened  and 
crowned  by  prayer.  The  first  and  the 
last  recorded  apostolic  acts  after  the 
Ascension  were  prayers — the  gathering 
in  the  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem,  and 
John’s  cry  from  Patmos,  ^‘Even  so, 
come.  Lord  Jesus. The  disciple®  did 
not  first  of  all  take  up  the  pen  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  memories  of  that  priceless  Life, 
nor  was  the  voice  of  the  world’s  great 


5 


need  that  had  brought  that  Life  to  earth 
strong  enough  to  call  away  their 
thoughts.  First  of  all  they  sought  the 
Lord’s  feet  in  prayer,  and  in  the  still, 
Pentecostal  hour  the  first  mighty  flood 
of  missionary  power  rolled  over  the  mis¬ 
sionary  band,  manifesting  its  character, 
its  meaning  and  its  might  in  the  convert¬ 
ed  thousands  of  that  day.  And  not  only 
did  prayer  secure  the  promised  power, 
but  it  converted  and  equipped  the  work¬ 
ers  in  the  mission  cause.  It  was  in  the 
days  that  they  all  continued  with  one  ac¬ 
cord  in  prayer  and  supplication,  and 
after  direct  request  for  guidance  that 
Matthias  was  chosen  to  fill  the  place  of 
him  who  was  guide  to  them  that  took 
Jesus.  The  seven  deacons;  Barnabas 
and  Saul,  after  their  separation  to  for¬ 
eign  service  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  the  el¬ 
ders  chosen  at  the  close  of  their  first 
missionary  journey — none  of  these  ven¬ 
tured  over  the  threshold  of  their  work 
without  the  preparation  of  prayer.  And 
it  was  in  prayer  that  new  departures 
were  taken.  Cornelius  at  Caesarea, 
and  Simon  Peter  upon  the  house-top  at 


6 


Joppa,  caught  in  prayer  the  commands 
that  opened  the  door  of  faith  to  the  Gen¬ 
tiles.  Prayet  formally  marked  the  in¬ 
ception  of  the  first  missionary  tour,  as 
it  had  brought  the  impulse  of  his  life 
to  the  first  great  missionary,  ^‘And  it 
came  to  pass  that  when  I  was  come 
again  to  Jerusalem,  even  while  I  prayed 
in  the  temple,  I  was  in  a  trance  *  * 

and  He  said  unto  me,  depart,  for  I  will 
send  thee  far  hence  unto  the  Gentiles.” 
And  lastly  it  was  to  prayer  that  in  time 
of  need  those  early  workers  invariably 
resorted.  Peter  kneels  down  by  the 
death-bed  of  Dorcas,  when  he  would 
have  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel’s  pow¬ 
er,  already  declared  at  the  beautiful  gate 
of  the  temple  in  Jerusalem,  revealed  at 
Joppa,  by  a  manifest  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  Prayer,  made  without  ceas¬ 
ing  of  the  Church  unto  God  for  him, 
opens  Herod’s  dungeon  doors  and  sets 
the  apostle  free.  The  Philippian  pris¬ 
on  shakes,  the  doors  hang  ajar,  the 
prisoners’  bonds  burst  asunder  amid  the 
midnight  prayers  of  Silas  and  Paul.  And 
on  the  last  page  of  the  record,  Publius* 


7 


* 

father’s  bloody  flux  departs  in  prayer. 
With  everything  thus  begun,  continued 
and  ended  in  prayer;  marking  every 
emergency,  guiding  every  progressive 
step,  animating  every  act  of  wider  obe¬ 
dience,  is  it  any  wonder  that  when  th2 
flames  of  missionary  zeal  and  success 
sank  away,  it  was  because  the  fires  of 
prayer  had  died  low  on  the  altars  of  de¬ 
votion?  Is  there  any  other  reason  than 
this  for  the  reiterated  plea  in  the  epistles 
of  Paul,  that  the  churches  he  had  found¬ 
ed  would  labor  together  with  him  in 
prayer  for  the  prosperity  of  the  Gospel 
with  them  and  with  him  and  in  all  the 
world?  No.  The  first  two  things  in 
the  early  Church  were  prayer  and  mis¬ 
sions,  and  the  deepest  alliance  in  the 
early  Church  was  between  missions  and 
prayer. 

And  not  only  so,  but  whenever  in  sub¬ 
sequent  centuries  the  Church  has  caught 
something  of  the  spirit  of  those  early 
days  it  has  been  manifested  in  a  new 
devotion  to  missions  and  a  revival 
of  prayer.  It  must  necessarily  be  so, 
for  His  spirit  is  a  spirit  of  service  and 


8 


communion,  of  missions  and  prayer. 
And  communion  without  service  is  a 
dream,  and  service  without  communion, 
ashes.  It  is  only,  therefore,  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  a  very  general  truth  that  we 
trace  the  foundation  of  our  present  mis¬ 
sionary  organizations  to  times  of  revival, 
which  were  also  times  of  awakened 
prayer.  Almost  the  first  breathings  of 
the  modern  missionary  period  were  in 
1723,  when  Robert  Millar,  Presbyterian 
minister  in  Paisley,  published  “The 
History  of  the  Propagation  of  Christian¬ 
ity  and  the  Overthrow  of  Paganism,”  in 
which  he  powerfully  urged  prayer  as 
the  first  of  nine  means  for  “the  conver¬ 
sion  of  the  heathen  world.”  In  Octo¬ 
ber,  1744,  after  some  of  the  famous 
revivals  of  1742,  in  the  West  country,  a 
band  of  nineteen  united  in  what  they 
called,  “a  concert  to  promote  more 
abundant  application  to  a  duty  that  is 
perpetually  binding — prayer  that  our 
God^s  kingdom  may  come,  joined  with 
praises.”  In  1784,  at  a  periodical  meet¬ 
ing  of  the  Northamptonshire  Association 
of  Baptist  Ministers,  on  motion  of  John 


9 


Sutcliff,  a  plan  drawn  up  by  John 
Ryland,  Jr.,  was  addressed  to  the 
churches,  which  urged,  among,  other 
things,  ‘‘Let  the  whole  interest  of  the 
Redeemer  be  affectionately  remembered, 
and  the  spread  of  the  gospel  to  the  most 
distant  parts  of  the  habitable  globe,  be 
the  object  of  your  most  fervent  re¬ 
quests.”  On  this  occasion  Andrew  Ful¬ 
ler  preached  his  first  printed  sermon  on 
“Working  by  Faith.”  Two  years  after¬ 
wards  William  Carey  was  baptized  in 
the  Nen  by  the  same  John  Ryland,  and 
ordained  by  Andrew  Fuller  to  the  min¬ 
istry  at  Moulton  village.  It  was  out  of 
all  this  prayer  and  revival  that  Carey 
and  his  little  band  of  Baptist  ministers 
addressed  themselves  to  the  task  of 
evangelizing  the  world.  Further  still, 
the  London  Missionary  Society  was 
founded  in  1795,  for  non-Baptist 
churches,  as  the  direct  result  of  William 
Carey^s  work,  itself  also  conceived  by 
Dr.  Bogue  and  Mr.  Stephens  and  found¬ 
ed  in  prayer.  Long  before  this,  even 
in  1732,  as  the  result  of  four  years’ 
prayer,  the  first  Moravian  missionaries 


lO 


went  out  from  Herrnhut.  And  lastly, 
in  1806,  a  year  full  of  missionary  im¬ 
pulse  in  answer  to  prayer,  came  the  fa¬ 
mous  prayer-meeting  in  the  shadow  of 
Greylock,  of  which  Dr.  Griffin,  a  presi¬ 
dent  of  Williams  College,  said:  *‘I  have 
been  in  situations  to  know  that  from  the 
councils  formed  in  that  sacred  conclave 
or  from  the  mind  of  Mills  himself,  arose 
the  American  Board  of  Commissioners 
for  Foreign  Missions,  the  American 
Bible  Society,  and  the  African 
School,  under  the  care  of  the 
Synod  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey, 
besides  all  the  impetus  given  to  domes¬ 
tic  missions,  to  the  Colonization  Soci¬ 
ety,  and  to  the  general  cause  of  benevo¬ 
lence  in  both  hemispheres.” 

And  not  only  has  prayer  played  the 
supreme  part  in  the  formation  of  mis¬ 
sionary  agencies,  but  it  has  been  at  the 
bottom  of  all  revivals  in  missionary 
work.  The  upheaval  in  the  Training 
School  at  Kyoto,  Japan,  March  16,  1883, 
whose  influence  has,  perhaps,  shaped 
the  whole  subsequent  Christian  devel¬ 
opment  of  Japan,  the  outpoured  floods 


II 


in  the  Lone  Star  Mission  among  the 
Telegus,  the  movement  among  the 
Mahrattas  in  India  on  the  first  Monday 
in  January,  1833,  the  incidents  of  1846 
in  Miss  Fiske’s  school  at  Oroomiah,  the 
work  of  Michaelis  of  the  Gossner  Soci¬ 
ety  in  Java,  and  the  revival  wave  that 
swept  over  Turkey  two  years  ago — all 
these  had  no  sufficient  explanation  save 
that  supplied  by  the  power  of  definite 
and  believing  prayer. 

Aye,  and  we  may  go  a  step  further 
than  this,  and  assert  that  through  men 
who  knew  how  to  pray  has  every  new 
departure  and  development  of  missions, 
which  has  borne  in  any  real  sense  the 
marks  of  God’s  leading,  been  effected. 
First  of  all,  the  occupation  of  new  fields. 
It  was  the  potency  of  prayer  that  de¬ 
molished  to  dust  the  walls  of  Chinese 
seclusion.  The  beginning  of  the  great 
work  in  Japan  was  traced  to  a  little 
room  where  the  missionaries  met  every 
day  to  pray.  101770,  seven  years  after 
the  death  of  Frederick  Bohmisch,  the 
first  of  the  missionary  triumvirate  which 
had  gone  to  Greenland  to  uphold  tJ^ 


12 


hands  of  Egede,  John  Beck  wrote  ta 
Matthew  Stach,  recalling  the  history  of 
their  early  life’s  work.  <‘We  three  it 
was,”  he  says,  ^‘who  made  that  sol¬ 
emn  vow,  one  with  another,  wholly 
to  follow  our  Lord  in  this  land.  How 
many  times  we  besought  Him,  with 
weeping,  to  grant  us  one  soul  of  this  na¬ 
tion.  But  He  stopped  not  at  one.  These 
congregations  which  we  have  seen  grow 
up  from  the  beginning,  how  far  do  they 
exceed  all  our  early  prayers.”  Allen 
Gardiner  transfigured  the  initial  steps 
of  the  work  in  Terra  del  Fuego  with 
prayer.  There  is  a  paper  written  by 
him  on  his  birthday,  in  which  he  says: 
“I  pray  that  Thou  wouldst  graciously 
prepare  a  way  for  the  entrance  of  Thy 
servants  among  the  poor  heathen  of 
these  islands,  *  *  ♦  and  should  we 

even  languish  and  die  here,  I  beseech 
Thee  to  raise  up  others  and  to  send  forth 
laborers  into  this  harvest.”  The  trans¬ 
lations  of  the  Bible,  which  have  gone  on 
their  errand  under  His  blessing,  have 
been  made  by  men  who  knew  how,  to 
bprrow  Neesima’s  phrase,  to  advance 


upon  their  knees.  Of  course  it  has 
ever  been  through  prayer  that  the  mis¬ 
sionaries  have  been  secured,  and  it  was 
thither,  consequently,  that  Bishop  Pat- 
teson  resorted  when  he  set  apart  George 
Sarawia,  praying  that  *‘he  might  be  but 
the  first  of  a  goodly  band  of  Melanesian 
clergymen  to  carry  the  gospel  to  their 
people.^’  This  was  the  only  source  of 
missionary  supply  recognized  by  Christ 
— ^‘Pray  ye,  therefore,  the  Lord  of  the 
harvest  to  thrust  forth  laborers  into  His 
harvest.”  And  seeking  them  in  any 
way  which  neglects  the  unceasing  search 
of  prayer  is  not  the  Lord’s  way.  The 
first  woman  ever  sent  from  America  as  a 
medical  missionary  declared  her  depart¬ 
ure  for  the  lightless  lands  to  be  the  re¬ 
sult  of  her  early  pastor’s  prayers.  The 
day  appointed  by  the  Church  Mission¬ 
ary  Society  in  1885  to  pray  for 
workers  was  anticipated,  even  the 
evening  ^  before  the  formal  meet¬ 
ing,  by  one  hundred  graduates  of  the 
University  Church,  who  dedicated  them¬ 
selves  to  the  foreign  missionary  work, 
and  declared  themselves  ready  to  go 


14 


when  their  studies  were  completed.  Be¬ 
fore  they  called  He  answered,  and  while 
they  were  yet  speaking  He  heard.  God 
alone  knows  how,  replying  to  prayer. 
He  sent  out  the  hundred  workers  asked 
by  the  China  Inland  Mission  in  1887. 
David  Temple  and  William  Goodell  went 
out  to  the  foreign  field  from  a  little 
group  of  half  a  dozen  who  met  for 
prayer  around  an  old  tree  stump  at  An¬ 
dover,  eighty  years  ago.  And  if  a  clearer 
indication  than  these  is  needed  of  God’s 
way  of  leading  out  His  workers,  it  is 
found  in  the  words  of  Baton’s  parents 
to  their  son  as  he  was  deciding  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  his  duty  to  the  heathen,  “When 
you  were  given  to  us,  we  laid  you  upon 
the  altar,  our  first  born,  to  be  consecra¬ 
ted,  if  God  saw  fit,  as  a  missionary  of 
the  cross;  and  it  has  been  our  constant 
prayer  that  you  may  be  prepared,  quali¬ 
fied  and  led  to  this  very  decision.”  If 
the  Church  must  resort  chiefly  to  prayer 
for  the  missionary  workers,  workers  and 
Church  must  labor  together  in  prayer 
for  the  desired  conversions;  and  foreign 
ij'ork  as  a  rule  has  been  least  fruitful  ia 


15 

such  results  where  the  Church  has  least 
lavished  her  prayers.  Only  the  great 
cloud  of  witnesses  who  have  been  famil¬ 
iar  with  all  the  trials  of  God’s  mission¬ 
aries  from  the  day  Paul  was  cast  out  for 
dead  at  Lystra  to  the  sufferings  caused 
by  the  last  Chinese  riots,  know  how 
many  lives  have  been  saved;  how  many 
dangers  have  been  avoided,  how  many 
perils  passed  on  the  highway  of  prayer. 
The  deliverances  of  1839  in  the  Turkish 
Empire,  and  the  preservation  of  faiih 
among  the  fagots  and  flames  of  persecu¬ 
tion  at  Uganda,  were  alike  advantages 
brought  to  the  kingdom  of  God  by 
prayer.  There  is  no  other  way  than 
this  to  fill  the  treasuries  of  mission 
boards  and  supply  the  means  for  an  im¬ 
mensely  widened  work  in  the  foreign 
field.  Nor  is  this  merely  a  Christian  truth 
which  no  experience  has  ever  proved. 
Pastor  Gossner  sent  out  into  the  foreign 
field  144  missionaries.  Besides  provid¬ 
ing  outfit  and  passage,  he  had  never  less 
than  twenty  missionaries  dependent  di¬ 
rectly  upon  him  for  support.  How  he 
carried  on  this  and  hi?,  other  Christian 


i6 


Work,  a  sentence  from  the  funeral  ad¬ 
dress  read  over  his  grave  will  explain: 
*^He  prayed  up  the  walls  of  a  hospital 
and  the  hearts  of  the  nurses;  he  prayed 
mission  stations  into  being  and  mission¬ 
aries  into  faith;  he  prayed  open  the 
hearts  of  the  rich,  and  gold  from  the 
most  distant  lands/’  <‘When  I  sent 
you  without  purse  and  scrip  and  shoes, 
lacked  ye  anything?  And  they  said. 
Nothing.”  It  is  the  voice  of  Him  to 
whom  belong  the  silver  and  the  gold, 
and  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills. 

Another  step  in  this  connection  we 
are  tracing  needs  to  be  taken.  The  first 
thing  in  the  life  of  the  convert  must  be 
prayer.  The  mission  that  is  not  a  train¬ 
ing  school  of  prayer  may  accomplish 
much  in  civilizing  and  enlightening,  but 
it  will  be  little  of  a  spiritual  power  in 
its  land.  Nothing  but  the  intimacy  of 
communion  and  the  answering  strength 
involved  in  taking  tuition  under  Him 
who  is  to  teach  men  to  pray,  will  ever 
hold  the  missionary  convert  in  the  midst 
of  overwhelming  temptations,  or  make 
him  for  God  a  man  of  spiritual  power. 


17 


Things  were  only,  then,  as  in  God’s  wa^ 
they  must  be,  when  in  the  revivals  oi 
1872,  in  Japan,  students  in  the  schools 
of  Japan,  and  in  the  colleges  of  prayer, 
so  besought  God  with  tears  in  one  of  the 
meetings  at  Yokohama,  that  He  would 
pour  out  His  spirit  on  Japan  as  at  Pen¬ 
tecost,  that  captains  of  men-of-war,  En¬ 
glish  and  American,  who  were  present, 
remarked,  ‘‘The  prayers  of  these  Japan¬ 
ese  take  the  hearts  out  of  us,”  and  the 
first  Japanese  congregation  of  eleven 
converts  sprang  out  of  those  prayers; 
or  when  the  prime  minister  of  the 
bloody  queen  of  Madagascar,  endeavor¬ 
ing  to  enforce  her  terrible  edicts  against 
the  Christians,  was  confronted  by  his 
own  nephew’s  declaration,  “I  am  a 
Christian,  and  if  you  will  you  may  put 
me  to  death,  for  I  must  pray.”  Even 
more  clearly  than  her  e  can  this  alliance 
of  prayer  and  missions  be  traced  in  the 
lives  of  individual  missionaries.  It  may 
not  be  possible  to  judge  of  outward 
success;  it  is  possible  to  know  the  meas¬ 
ure  of  inward  fidelity  from  the  place 
which  prayer  occupies  in  the  missionary’s 


i8 


life,  and  yet,  I  do  desire  to  say, 
gravely  and  earnestly,”  says  a  mis¬ 
sionary  of  the  American  Board:  “that 
my  missionary  life  has  been  successful 
so  far  as  I  have  been  prayerful,  and  non¬ 
successful  so  far  as  in  prayerfulness  I 
have  been  lax.”  Foremost  among  these 
prayer-souled  men  of  missions  stands 
David  Brainerd.  In  his  diary  he  writes: 
“God  enabled  me  so  to  agonize  in  prayer 
that  I  was  quite  wet  with  perspiration, 
though  in  the  shade  and  in  the  cool 
wind.  My  soul  was  drawn  out  very 
much  from  the  world  for  multitudes  of 
souls.  ’  ’  And  in  1 747  he  left  a  dying  injunc¬ 
tion  for  his  beloved  Christian  Indians, 
that  at  the  monthly  missionary  concert, 
which  the  year  before  had  been  recom¬ 
mended  from  Scotland,  they  should  pray 
for  “the  conversion  of  the  world.”  Such 
a  man  was  John  Hunt,  with  his  death¬ 
bed  cry:  “Oh,  let  me  pray  for  Fiji, 
Lord,  save  Fiji;”  and  Adoniram  Judson, 
whose  only  testimony,  after  a  long  life 
of  deep  experience  was:  “I  never  was 
deeply  interested  in  any  object,  I  never 
prayed  sincerely  and  earnestly  for 


I 


19 


anything  but  it  came  at  some  time — nc 
matter  how  distant  the  day,  somehow, 
in  some  shape,  probably  the  last  I 
should  have  devised — it  came!”  Dr. 
Goodell’s  appeal,  ‘‘Let  it  be  known, 
too,  that  more,  apparently,  can  be  done 
now  by  prayer  than  in  any  other  way. 
Whoever  prays  most,  helps  most,”  was 
only  an  expression  of  his  own  life.  It 
was  by  prayer  that  Paton  was  led  into 
the  missionary  service,  by  prayer  he  won 
the  hearts  of  degraded  men,  by  prayer 
he  dug  wells  and  found  fresh  water 
where  others  found  none  or  salt,  by 
prayer  he  checked  the  hand  of  the  as 
sassin,  by  prayer  he  locked  the  jaws  of 
violence;  we  maybe  sure  that  it  will  be  in 
the  hush  of  prayer  that  he  will  fall 
asleep.  From  no  other  source  than 
this  could  Mackay  ever  have  gained 
strength  for  the  life  of  unwearied,  un¬ 
measured  usefulness  he  laid  down  at 
Uganda.  Regarding  his  prayer,  his 
companion,  Ashe,  says:  “Mackay’s 
prayer  was  very  childlike,  full  of  simple 
trust  and  supplication.  Very  humble, 
very  meek,  very  childlike,  he  was  on  hi® 


20 


knees  before  God.’’  How  much  David 
Livingstone  prayed  may  be  inferred 
from  brief  glimpses  here  and  there  in 
his  journals,  into  the  holy  place  in  his 
life.  He  records  on  April  29,  1866,  an 
answer  to  some  prayers  of  his  for  influ¬ 
ence  on  the  minds  of  the  heathen.  He 
began  different  years  of  his  diaries  with 
a  prayer.  Thus,  Jan.  i,  1868,  < ^Al¬ 
mighty  Father,  forgive  the  sins  of  the 
past  year  for  thy  Son’s  sake.  Help  me 
to  be  more  profitable  during  this  year. 
If  I  am  to  die  this  year,  prepare  me  for 
it.”  He  wrote  prayers  on  his  birthdays, 
too,  as  March  19,  1872,  the  next  to  the 
last  of  his  birthdays,  *‘My  Jesus,  my 
King,  my  Life,  my  All,  I  again  dedicate 
my  whole  self  to  thee.  Accept  me  and 
grant,  oh,  gracious  Father,  that  ere  this 
year  is  gone,  I  may  finish  my  task.  In 
Jesus’  name,  I  ask  it.  Amen.  So  let  it 
be.  David  Livingstone.”  And  on  the 
last  birthday  of  all,  '‘Let  not  Satan  pre¬ 
vail  over  me,  oh!  my  good  Lord  Jesus.” 
And  when  the  worn  and  wasted  figure 
was  found  dead,  it  was  in  the  attitude  of 
prayer.  Even  in  that  lonely  hour  he 


21 


had  knelt  down  by  his  bedside  at  flala 
to  commend,  with  one  dying  effort,  the 
world’s  open  sore  to  the  Redeemer  of 
the  oppressed  and  the  Savior  of  the  lost. 
There  are  more  martyrs  than  those  who 
have  poured  out  their  blood  or  burned 
at  the  stake  for  Christ  and  His  Church. 
They  too,  are  martyrs  who  have  poured 
out  their  lives  in  service  and  their  souls 
in  the  agony  of  prayer,  that  the  Son  of 
God  and  His  kingdom  would  come. 
And  as  Sabbath  by  Sabbath  a  great 
branch  of  the  Church  sings  those  glori¬ 
ous  words,  ‘‘The  noble  army  of  martyrs, 
praise  Thee,”  it  is  simply  the  confident 
assertion  that  those  who  served  Hinv 
here  in  the  ministry  of  toil  and  prayer 
have  taken  up  the  ministry  of  praise  in 
the  land  where  His  servants  shall  serve 
Him. 

The  connection  between  prayer  and 
missions  has  been  traced  thus  over  the 
whole  field  of  missionary  conditions, 
simply  to  show  that  every  element  in 
the  missionary  problem  of  to-day  de¬ 
pends  for  its  solution  chiefly  upon 
prayer.  The  assertion  has  been 


22 


frequently  made  in  past  years,  that  with 
20,000  men,  properly  qualified  and  dis¬ 
tributed,  the  world  could  be  evangelized 
in  thirty  years.  And  actually  there  is 
need  of  an  immediate  undaunted  effort 
to  secure  20,000  men.  Neither,  per¬ 
haps,  can  the  world  be  evangelized 
without  them,  nor  can  they  be  secured 
without  effort.  But  it  is  hopeless  to  en¬ 
deavor  to  obtain  them,  and  they  will  be 
worthless  if  obtained,  unless  the  whole 
effort  be  inspired  and  permeated  with 
prayer.  ^‘Thrust  Thou  forth  Thy  labor¬ 
ers  into  the  harvest.^’  Or  with  the 
world  open  and  men  offering,  and  treas¬ 
uries  depleted,  the  missionary  agents  of 
the  Church  may  sometimes  feel  that  the 
great  need  is  a  consecration  of  wealth  to 
the  world-wide  service  of  Christ;  and 
surely  he  does  still  plead  that  the  tithes 
be  brought  into  the  store-house  and  His 
readiness  to  pour  out  a  blessing  tested 
therewith,  but  money  is  not  the  great 
need.  The  evangelization  of  the  world 
in  this  "generation  depends  first  0/  all 
upon  a  revival  of  prayer.  Deeper  tnan 
the  need  for  men;  deeper,  far,  than  the 


23 


need  for  money;  aye,  deep  down  at  the 
bottom  of  our  spiritless  life  is  the  need 
for  the  forgotten  secret  of  prevailing, 
world-wide  prayer.  Missions  have  pro¬ 
gressed  slowly  abroad,  because  piety 
and  prayer  have  been  shallow  at  home. 
“When  I  shall  see  Christians  all  over 
the  world, said  John  Foster,  “resolved 
to  prove  what  shall  be  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  for  the  conversion  of  the  world, 
I  shall  begin  to  think  that  the  millennium 
is  at  the  door.”  The  condition  and 
consequence  of  such  prayers  as  this  is 
a  new  out-pouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Nothing  short  of  His  own  suggestion  will 
prompt  the  necessary  prayer  to  bring 
Him  back  again  in  power.  Nothing 
short  of  His  new  out-pouring  will  ever 
solve  the  missionary  problems  of  our  day. 
The  first  call  ever  sent  out  for  the  an¬ 
nual  week  of  prayer,  came  first  from  the 
mission  field,  and  was  designed  to  unite 
the  whole  Christian  world  in  earnest 
prayer  for  the  promised  outpouring  of 
the  Spirit  upon  all  nations;  and  yet  year 
by  year  the  idea  has  been  practically  ig¬ 
nored,  so  that  on  one  occasion  the 


24 

advance  call  contained  no  allusion  to  the 
Holy  Spirit  at  all.  There  has  been  in 
our  own  day  more  than  one  unconscious 
manifestation  of  the  same  spirit  which 
more  than  a  century  and  a  half  ago, 
when  the  King  of  Denmark  issued  a  let¬ 
ter  ordering  a  petition  for  missions  in 
India  and  Denmark  to  be  introduced 
into  the  church  prayers,  quickly  found 
expression  in  hostility  and  disobedience. 

Considering  the  fearful  consequences 
of  it  all,  something  like  criminal  negli¬ 
gence  has  marked  for  years  the  attitude 
of  the  Church  toward  the  matchless  pow* 
erof  prayer  for  the  world.  Shall  it  be  so 
longer  or  shall  a  change  come  over  the 
Church?  It  will  not  avail  to  pass  reso¬ 
lutions  and  form  prayer  alliances.  For 
generations  great  calls  have  been  issued, 
leagues  have  been  proposed,  emotions 
have  been  aroused,  and  yet  the  days 
continue  evil;  the  kingdom  of  God 
moves  faster,  but  slowly  stiU.  and  prayer 
is  an  echo  on  men^s  lips  rather  than  a 
passion  from  their  hearts.  But  if  fifty 
men  of  our  generation  will  enter  the 
holy  place  of  prayer,  and  become^ 


T 


25 


henceforth,  men  whose  hearts  God  hag 
touched,  with  the  prayer-passion,  the 
history  of  His  Church  will  be  changed. 

By  the  wicked  neglect  of  a  life  that 
misses  the  first  things  in  prayer,  and 
that  never  strains  the  heart  strings  of  its 
devotion  over  the  world,  shall  we  virtu¬ 
ally  beseech  Him:  ‘‘Let  not  Thy  king¬ 
dom  come;  stop  Thou  the  Macedonian 
cry;  close  Thou  the  doors  of  access  to 
the  heathen;  bind  up  the  purse  strings 
of  the  Church  and  palsy  the  feet  of  mis¬ 
sionaries  upon  the  threshold;  let  the 
world^s  millions  go  on  to  death.”  On 
in  lives  that  linger  ceaselessly  before 
the  Lord,  shall  we  pour  out  our  souls  in 
John  Milton^s  sublime  prayer:  “The 
times  and  seasons  pass  along  under  Thy 
feet  and  go  and  come  at  Thy  bidding; 
and  as  thou  didst  dignify  our  fathers’ 
days  with  many  revelations  above  all 
their  foregoing  ages  since  Thou  tookest 
the  flesh,  so  Thou  canst  vouchsafe  to  us, 
the  unworthy,  as  large  a  portion  of  Thy 
Spirit  as  Thou  pleasest;  for  whe  shall 
prejudice  thy  all-governing  will?  Seeing 
the  power  of  Thy  grace  is  not  passed 


20 


away  with-  the  primitive  times,  as  bold 
and  faithless  men  imagine,  but  Thy 
kingdom  is  now  at  hand,  and  Thou, 
standing  at  the  door,  come  forth  out  of 
Thy  royal  chambers,  O  Prince  of  all  the 
kings  of  the  earth,  put  on  the  visible 
robes  of  Thy  imperial  majesty;  take  up 
that  unlimited  sceptre  which  Thy  Al¬ 
mighty  Father  hath  bequeathed  Thee; 
for  now  the  voice  of  Thy  Bride  calls 
Thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be  re¬ 
newed.’^  Of  far  greater  service  than 
any  array  of  learning  or  gifts  of  elo¬ 
quence,  more  to  be  desired  than  gold 
and  fine  gold,  more  to  be  sought  than  a 
great  name,  or  apparent  opportunities 
for  large  usefulness,  of  deeper  signifi¬ 
cance  than  high  intellectual  attainment, 
or  power  of  popular  influence,  is  this 
gift — may  God  give  it  to  each  one  of 
us! — the  secret  and  sweetness  of  unceas¬ 
ing,  prevailing,  triumphant  prayer  for 
the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 


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